MEETING OF PARLIAMENT--Queen's Speech--The Premier's speech on the
Address--Goes into the whole question of Free Trade--The
Protectionists--Lord Brougham's views (_note_)--The twelve night's
debate on the Corn Laws--No connection between it and the
Famine--Stafford O'Brien's speech--Sir James Graham's reply--Smith
O'Brien's speech--His imprisonment (_note B Appendix_)--O'Connell's
motion--His speech--Sir Robert Peel replies--Substantially agrees
with O'Connell--Bill for the protection of life in Ireland--Its
first reading opposed by the Irish members--O'Connell leads the
Opposition in a speech of two hours--Mr. D'Israeli mistaken in
calling it his last speech--His account of it--He misrepresents
it--The opinions expressed in it were those O'Connell always held.
Break up of the Tory party--Lord George Bentinck becomes leader of
the Protectionists--Their difficulty in opposing the Coercion
Bill--Ingenious plan of Lord George--Strange combination against the
Government--Close of Debate on Coercion Bill--Government defeated by
a majority of 73--Measures to meet the Famine--Delay--Accounts from
various parts of the country--Great distress--"Are the landlords
making any efforts?"--Notice for rent--The bailiff's reply--Number
of workhouses open--Number of persons in them--Sir Robert Peel's
speech on his resignation--Accident to him--His death--The
Peels--Sir Robert's qualities and character--His manner of dealing
with the Famine--His real object the repeal of the Corn Laws.
Sir Robert Peel, thus reinstated as Prime Minister of England for the
third time, met Parliament on the 22nd of January with a Queen's speech,
in which her Majesty's first allusion to Ireland was one of deep regret
at the deliberate assassinations so frequent in that country. The speech
then goes on to deplore the failure of the potato in the United
Kingdom--the failure being greatest in Ireland--assuring Parliament that
"all precautions that could be adopted were adopted for the purpose of
alleviating the calamity." An eulogium is next passed on previous
legislation in the direction of Free Trade, and upon the benefits
conferred by it, with a recommendation that Parliament should take into
early consideration the principles which guided that legislation, with a
view of having them more extensively applied.
And her Majesty is finally made to say, that she thinks further
reductions in the existing duties "upon many articles, the produce of
other countries, will tend to ensure the continuance of these great
benefits." The wily Premier did not allow the word "Corn" or "Corn Laws"
to have a place in the speech of his Royal Mistress.
Anxious to explain, at the very earliest moment, the causes which led to
the dissolution of his Ministry and their return to office, he spoke
upon the Address, and went into the whole question. He put the potato
blight in the foreground; for, with the instinct of the caddice worm, he
felt that this was the piece of bulrush by which he could best float his
Free Trade policy, his Government and himself. And, indeed, from the
first night of the session until the resolutions on the Corn Laws were
carried, the members of the Government showed the greatest anxiety to
keep the terrible consequences of the potato failure before Parliament.
They did not exaggerate the failure, nor its then probable effects; they
gave to both that importance which they really demanded, but which, only
the admission helped the repeal of the Corn Laws, they would hardly be
so ready to concede. The Protectionists, on the contrary, took up the
cry of "exaggeration," against the most undoubted evidence, supplied
from every part of the country, by persons in every rank of life, and of
every shade of political opinion. "We have," said one of them,[88]
"famine in the newspapers, we have famine in the speeches of Cabinet
Ministers, but we find abundance in the markets; the cry of famine is a
pretext, but it is not the reason for the changes." There is some truth
in the latter part of this sentence--famine was not all a pretext, but
it was certainly used by ministers as a cry to strengthen their Corn Law
policy. "It was," said Sir Robert Peel, "that great and mysterious
calamity, the potato failure, that was the immediate and proximate cause
which led to the dissolution of the Government on the 6th of December,
1845." Two most important points, he said, they had now before them; (1)
the measures to be immediately adopted in consequence of the potato
blight; (2) and the ultimate course to be pursued in relation to the
importation of grain. His opinions, he goes on to say, on the subject of
Protection had undergone a change, and chiefly because the prophecies of
the protectionists, when the tariff was altered in '42, were falsified
by experience. Now, if the Free Traders had a watchword which they used
more frequently than any other, it was the cry of "cheap bread;" and yet
in the face of this, the Premier said:--"I want, at the same time, to
show that concurrently with the increase of importation, there has been
an increase in the prices of the articles." He then quotes several of
the Government contracts to prove this assertion, which was quite
correct.[89] Once again, he puts prominently forward the advice he gave
his Government in the beginning of November, 1845, which was, either to
open the ports by an Order in Council, or to call Parliament together as
soon as possible, to meet the "great and pressing danger of the potato
failure;" but what he does _not_ put forward is, that he grounded both
these proposals on the condition that the Corn Laws should be repealed.
To be sure he stated this condition mildly, when he told his colleagues
that once the ports were opened, he would not undertake to close
them--yet what was this but saying to a protectionist Cabinet,--there is
great danger of a famine in Ireland--we ought to open the ports or
assemble Parliament, but I will not agree to one or the other unless you
all become Free-traders; thus making the feeding or the starving of the
Irish people depend on the condition, that the members of his Government
were to change their views, and preach Free Trade from those benches, to
which they had been triumphantly carried on the shoulders of Protection.
In truth, Sir Robert, more than most politicians, was in the habit of
suppressing those portions of a question which he found inconvenient;
limiting his statement to such parts of it, as suited his present
purpose. In his communications with his colleagues, he was very fond of
such phrases as, "to lay aside all reserve," "to speak in the most
unreserved manner," etc.; thus forcibly impressing one with his habitual
love of reserve, even with his greatest intimates. And in his speech of
the 22nd of January, on the Address, he said, with suspicious
indignation, that "nothing could be more base or dishonest" than to use
the potato blight as a means of repealing the Corn Laws.
The great twelve nights' debate on the repeal of these laws, commenced
five days after the speech above referred to, was made. The Premier, at
great length and very ably, repeated the arguments he had been putting
forward since the previous November, in favour of taking the duty off
everything that could be called human food; he even proposed to repeal
the duty on the importation of potatoes, by which, he said, he hoped to
obtain sound seed from abroad. Sir Robert, in this speech, may be said
to have been in his best vein,--- full, explanatory, clear, assumptive,
persuasive,--often appealing to the kindness and forbearance of his
hearers,--always calculating a good deal on his power of bending people
to his views by a plausible, diplomatic treatment of the whole question.
Addressing Mr. Greene, the chairman of the Committee, he said, with
solemn gravity: "Sir, I wish it were possible to take advantage of this
calamity, for introducing among the people of Ireland the taste for a
better and more certain provision for their support than that which they
have heretofore cultivated." Surely, the Indian meal, which he so often
boasted of having ordered on his own responsibility, was not a step in
that direction. To have purchased and stored for their use the wheat and
oats of their own soil, would have been, one should suppose, the direct
way of achieving this philanthropic desire.
On the fifth night of the debate, Sir Robert rose again, and, in his
speech, applied himself almost exclusively to the famine part of the
question. He read many letters from persons in high position in Ireland,
to prove to the House what was unfortunately but too well known in that
country for many months, that the greater portion of the only food of
four millions of the people was destroyed. Reading from an official
report, substantially embracing the whole kingdom, he said: "In four
electoral divisions, nearly nine-tenths of the potato crop are gone; in
ninety three, between seven-tenths and eight-tenths; and in one hundred
and twenty-five, the loss approaches to seven-tenths of the whole crop;
in sixteen divisions, to six-tenths; in five hundred and ninety-six
divisions, nearly one-half; and in five hundred and eighty-two, nearly
four-tenths are destroyed." Appealing to the House, he says it has but
two courses,--"to maintain the existing law, or make some proposal for
increasing the facilities of procuring foreign articles of food." "Will
you not, then," he concludes, in an elaborate peroration, "will you not
then cherish with delight the reflection, that, in this, the present
hour of _comparative prosperity_, yielding to no clamour--impelled by no
fear--except, indeed, that provident fear which is the mother of
safety--you had anticipated the evil day, and, long before its advent,
had trampled on every impediment to the free circulation of the
Creator's bounty."
The old Tory party had, in the beginning, admitted, to a great extent,
the failure of the potato crop in Ireland; but seeing the use the Peel
Government were making of it, they seem to have agreed to maintain that
the reports--Government as well as others--were greatly
exaggerated,--and for a purpose. Lord George Bentinck, the coming leader
of the Protectionists, said, that "in his opinion, which every day's
experience confirmed, the potato famine in Ireland was a gross
delusion--a more gross delusion had never been practised upon the
country by any Government." Mr. Shaw, the member for the University of
Dublin, maintained that "great exaggeration existed." "The case," he
said, "was not extraordinary--_fever, dysentery_, and _death_ being a
kind of normal state" in Ireland!
Members on both sides of the House soon began to see, that there was no
necessary connection between the potato failure in Ireland, and the
repeal of the Corn Laws, although, in all his speeches on the subject,
Sir Robert Peel assumed it as a matter of course. The only member of the
Government who attempted to prove this connection, was Sir James Graham.
Mr. Stafford O'Brien, the member for North Northamptonshire, but
connected by marriage with the county Clare, and one of the ablest men
in the Tory ranks, said he had just returned from Ireland; that there
was no exaggeration about the failure of the potato crop there, but that
it had nothing to do with the question of the Corn Laws. He accused the
Government of introducing a new principle for a disaster which he hoped
would be casual, and of announcing that new principle without, in the
least, tracing out how the Corn Laws had contributed to the famine in
Ireland; or how the total abrogation of those laws was likely to
alleviate that country's distress. The Irish members, he said, all asked
for employment; they wished the railways to be made; they expressed
their fears about the want of seed for the ground;--but they said, "if
you wish to complete our ruin destroy our agriculture." Whilst he
expressed the opinion, that there never was a country which called for
more urgent attention on the part of the Government than Ireland did at
the moment, he did not believe, he said, that if they passed the
Government Bill to-morrow, that one more quarter of corn, or one more
hundred weight of meal, would be placed within the reach of the poor of
Ireland, unless it was accompanied by other measures. Sir James Graham
replied, that "it did appear to him, that this matter of the coming
scarcity, if not of famine, in Ireland, had an immediate and
indissoluble connection with the question of the Corn Laws; and that he,
for one, would not propose to the people of Great Britain, to take out
of the taxes of Great Britain public money, to aid in the sustenance of
their fellow-countrymen in Ireland, while, artificially, by the laws,
the price of the food of the people of Great Britain is enhanced." With
regard to this logic of Sir James, it may be remarked, (1) that the
immediate effect produced, _and sought to be produced_, by a repeal of
the Corn Laws, was to cheapen in the market the only thing Ireland had
to sell--corn; (2) that the Irish members did not ask any portion of the
taxes of Great Britain, to feed their countrymen,--they proclaimed and
proved, that the resources of their own country were sufficient for this
purpose; and this view was frequently put forward by O'Connell, and
other leading Irish representatives.
William Smith O'Brien, the member for Limerick county, spoke but little
during the session. He, and that advanced party in the Repeal
Association which acknowledged him as leader, had made up their minds,
that Irish Parliamentary business should be transacted in Ireland; and
that St. Stephen's was not the place, where patriotic Irish members
could best serve their country. Agreeably to this view, he remained in
Ireland for nearly two months after the meeting of Parliament, in
regular attendance at the Repeal Association, throwing out suggestions
for the formation of an Irish party, on a basis wide enough to admit
Liberals, Conservatives, and all others with national aspirations. He
also paid much attention to the measures brought forward by the
Government for the relief of his famishing countrymen; he prepared and
brought up reports in the Association on those measures, and reviewed
and criticised them in his speeches. At length, he entered an appearance
in the House of Commons on the 13th of March. There was a motion before
the House, brought forward by the Home Secretary, Sir James Graham, that
provision should be made to meet the impending fever and famine in
Ireland. Sir James, in his speech, boasted of the sums of money already
advanced, with such liberality, for the relief of Ireland. Smith O'Brien
made a brief reply, in which he said that the moneys advanced were badly
expended, having found their way into other channels than those
intended. "He would," he further observed, "tell them frankly--and it
was a feeling participated in by the majority of Irishmen--that he was
not disposed to appeal to their generosity. There was no generosity in
the matter. They had taken, and they had tied the purse-strings of the
Irish purse." "They should compel the landlords," he again urged, "to do
their duty to the people, and if they did, there would be neither
disturbance nor starvation." In making these observations he must have
spoken with unwonted energy, and with a boldness unusual in Parliament,
as he apologised for his tone and manner, which, he said, he knew could
not be acceptable to the House. When he sat down, Lord Claud Hamilton
rose and replied to him, by one of those fierce invectives which, after
the lapse of a quarter of a century he still, on occasion, can summon up
vigour enough to deliver. He taunted the hon. member for Limerick with
having then, for the first time during the Session, made his appearance
in the House. He told him that, having neglected his own duties both as
a representative and a landlord, an attack upon the landlords of Ireland
came from him with a bad grace. He further accused him with lending
himself to a baneful system of agitation, by which Ireland was
convulsed, and prosperity rendered unattainable in that country. Lord
Claud having resumed his seat, Smith O'Brien again rose, and said he
would not take up their time in replying to him, but he wished to tell
the House, that the tone, not so much of the House as of the English
press, "about those miserable grants had exasperated him, and a large
number of his fellow-countrymen." "If Parliament met in November," be
continued, "to enact good laws, instead of now coming forward with a
Coercion Bill, they would not be under the necessity of making those
painful appeals to Parliament." On the 18th of March he spoke again,
calling for a tax of ten per cent, on absentees, which would at once, he
said, produce £400,000. But it was on the 17th of April he made his
longest and most effective speech. On that occasion, he began by reading
extracts from the provincial press of Ireland, giving accounts of
"Fearful destitution," "Deaths from Famine," and so forth. He then said,
"the circumstance which appeared most aggravating was, that the people
were starving in the midst of plenty, and that every tide carried from
the Irish ports corn sufficient for the maintenance of thousands of the
Irish people." He put forward the sound, but then unpopular view of the
repeal of the Corn Laws, which was, that its immediate effect would be
injurious to Ireland. "He could not," he told the House, "refrain from
expressing his regret, that Government should think it necessary to
couple the question of Ireland with the question of the Corn Laws. These
laws did not affect the description of food available for the people of
Ireland ... he was one of those who differed from the great majority of
the hon. members at his side of the House--he meant with respect to
measures to alter the Corn Law, which he had no doubt would be of
service to this country, but would for some time be injurious to
Ireland." He closed his speech by the declaration, that "he felt it his
duty to throw the responsibility upon Government; and in his conscience
he believed that, for whatever loss of life might arise from want of
food, or from outbreaks, the result of want, ministers would be
answerable."[90]
Meantime, the Irish liberal members grew heart-sick of the endless
debate upon the Corn Laws, out of which they expected nothing would come
to relieve their starving countrymen. During its progress, O'Connell
made a motion that the House would resolve itself into a committee, to
take into consideration the state of Ireland, with a view to devise
means to relieve the distress of the Irish people. He called attention
to the vast exports of food from Ireland; showed that while Poor Laws
might mitigate distress in ordinary seasons, they were not capable of
meeting a famine; and, speaking from the depths of his conviction, he
declared that, in his conscience he believed, the result of neglect on
the part of the House, in the present instance, would be deaths to an
enormous amount. "It may be said," the Liberator continued, with a
dignity worthy of him, "that I am here to ask money to succour Ireland
in her distress: _No such thing, I scorn the thought_; I am here to
say, Ireland has resources of her own." The Home Secretary replied;
admitted O'Connell's facts, but begged of him "to leave the matter in
the hands of the responsible advisers of the Crown." Lord John Russell
counselled the withdrawal of the motion, as he considered the measures
of the Government judicious. It was accordingly withdrawn, and so the
matter ended for that time. But again, on the 9th of March, O'Connell
asked the First Lord of the Treasury if he were prepared to lay before
the House a statement of the measures taken by the Government, to
obviate the impending famine and disease in Ireland. Delay, he said,
would be fatal, and the sums of money already voted would not be of the
least avail. He repeated, that the Irish people were not suing _in forma
pauperis_; there were resources in the country, and some further
measures should be adopted, to meet the exigencies of their case. Sir
Robert Peel replied, that "the statement did not fall much short of the
impression _first formed in his mind_ in October and November last," and
concluded thus: "I again assure the honorable and learned member that
_every precaution that can be taken by Government has been taken, not
within the last week, or fortnight, but long ago_."
In the Speech from the throne, her Majesty was made to say, that she
observed with deep regret the very frequent instances, in which the
crime of deliberate assassination had been, of late, committed in
Ireland; and that it would be the duty of Parliament to consider,
whether any measure could be devised, to give increased protection to
life in that country. In accordance with this striking passage in the
Royal Message, Lord St. Germans, Chief Secretary for Ireland, introduced
in the House of Lords, on the 23rd of February, a bill for the
protection of life in Ireland, better known by the title of Coercion
Bill, given to it by the liberal Irish members, and by the Irish people.
Of course it passed without difficulty, Lord Bingham, as became one of
his name and blood, making a furious speech in its favour.
Strong as the Peel Cabinet had been for years, the Premier's newly
announced policy on the Corn Law question led to such a disruption of
party ties, that the progress of the Coercion Bill through the Commons
could not be regarded by the Government without apprehension. When it
went down from the Lords, the unusual, though not unprecedented
proceeding of opposing its first reading, was had recourse to by
O'Connell and his supporters. O'Connell led the opposition in a speech
of two hours, which Mr. D'Israeli calls his last speech in the House of
Commons; but this is a mistake. He spoke on the 8th of February, 1847,
nearly a year after, on the famine. It is quite possible, that Mr.
D'Israeli confounds the two occasions, for the account he gives of
O'Connell on the 3rd of April, 1846, was far more applicable to him in
February, 1847. Of the speech delivered on the former occasion, against
the first reading of the Coercion Bill, Mr D'Israeli says: "It was
understood that the House would adjourn for the Easter recess on the 8th
instant. There were, therefore, only two nights remaining for Government
business, before the holidays. On the first of these, (Friday, April the
3rd), Mr. O'Connell had announced, that he should state his views at
length on the condition of Ireland, and the causes of these agrarian
outrages. Accordingly, when the order of the day for resuming the
adjourned debate was read, he rose at once, to propose an amendment to
the motion. He sate in an unusual place--in that generally occupied by
the leader of the opposition, and spoke from the red box, convenient to
him, from the number of documents to which he had to refer. His
appearance was of great debility, and the tones of his voice were very
still. His words, indeed, only reached those who were immediately around
him, and the ministers sitting on the other side of the green table, and
listening with that interest, and respectful attention which became the
occasion. It was a strange and touching spectacle, to those who
remembered the form of colossal energy, and the clear and thrilling
tones, that had once startled, disturbed, and controlled senates. Mr.
O'Connell was on his legs for nearly two hours, assisted occasionally,
in the management of his documents, by some devoted aide-de-camp. To the
house generally, it was a performance of dumb show, a feeble old man
muttering before a table; but respect for the great parliamentary
personage kept all as orderly as if the fortunes of a party hung upon
his rhetoric; and though not an accent reached the gallery, means were
taken that, next morning, the country should not lose the last, and not
the least interesting of the speeches of one, who had so long occupied
and agitated the mind of nations. This remarkable address was an
abnegation of the whole policy of Mr. O'Connell's career. It proved, by
a mass of authentic evidence, ranging over a long term of years, that
Irish outrage was the consequence of physical misery, and that the
social evils of that country, could not be successfully encountered by
political remedies. To complete the picture, it concluded with a
panegyric of Ulster and a patriotic quotation from Lord Clare."[91]
That the rich and splendid voice, which had so often sounded in the ears
of his countrymen, like the varied and touching music of their native
land, and led them where he would, had lost its finest tones, was true
enough; but it had not so utterly failed as Mr. D'Israeli asserts. I
heard O'Connell speak in public after this time, and although the marks
of age and feebleness were in his whole manner, he managed his voice so
as to be heard and understood at a considerable distance. "Respect for
the great parliamentary personage kept all as orderly as if the fortunes
of a party hung upon his rhetoric," Mr. D'Israeli says. He ought to have
recollected, that the fortunes of a party did really hang upon his
rhetoric on this very occasion; for, to the uncompromising opposition of
O'Connell and his friends, may be fairly attributed the ultimate defeat
of this Coercion Bill, which defeat drove Sir Robert Peel from power,
and brought in Lord John Russell. As to some means or other having been
taken to publish a speech that had not been heard, there can be little
doubt but the reporters took it down substantially, with the exception
of the documents read. It was not O'Connell's habit to write his
speeches; where then could the means of publishing this one come from,
except from the reporters? He made several short speeches during the
progress of the bill, which were printed in the newspapers in the usual
way, surely they must have been reported in the usual way.
But this is a trifle: the most unkind and groundless assertion the
author of the letters of Runnymede makes, with regard to the man who
called him the lineal descendant of the impenitent thief, is, when he
says, that "this remarkable address was an abnegation of the whole
policy of Mr. O'Connell's career." This is strangely inexact: nay more,
if Mr. D'Israeli heard the speech, as is to be inferred, or if he read
it, it is disingenuous. The speech was a bold denunciation of the system
of evictions, carried out by Irish landlords, to which O'Connell
attributed the murders the Government relied on, to justify them in
bringing forward the Coercion Bill. Speaking of the murder of Mr.
Carrick, he said: "here again let me solemnly protest--I am sure I need
not--that I do not consider any of these acts as an excuse, or a reason,
or even as the slightest palliation of his murder (hear, hear); no, they
are not, it was a horrible murder; it was an atrocious murder; it was a
crime that was deserving of the severest punishment which man can
inflict, and which causes the red arm of God's vengeance to be suspended
over the murderer (hear, hear)." But he adds: "I want the House to
prevent the recurrence of such murders. You are going to enact a
Coercion Bill against the peasantry and the tenantry, and my object is,
that you should turn to the landlords, and enact a Coercion Bill
against them." Who but Mr. D'Israeli can perceive any abnegation of
O'Connell's principles in these sentiments? He quoted Parliamentary
reports to prove what tyrannical use had been made of the powers
conferred by Coercion Acts, and he enumerated those passed since 1801,
under some of which trial by jury was abolished. He cited blue books to
show the misery and destitution to which ejected tenants were sometimes
reduced, closing his proofs with this sentence: "such is the effect of
the ejectment of tenantry in Ireland." He next dwelt on the physical
wretchedness of the people in general, relying chiefly for his facts on
the Devon Commission. He reminded Sir James Graham of a statement of
his, that the murders in Ireland were a blot upon Christianity. "Is
not," said O'Connell, "the state of things I have described a blot upon
Christianity? (hear, hear). This, be it recollected," he continued, "is
forty-five years after the Union, during which time Ireland has been
under the government of this country, which has reduced the population
of that country to a worse condition than that of any other country in
Europe" (hear, hear).
His great object was to prove that the state of the Land Laws was the
cause of agrarian murders, and that Coercion Acts were not a remedy. In
the County Tipperary, where there were most ejectments, there were also
most murders, and he called the particular attention of the house to
this fact. He referred to the Land Commission report with regard to
ejectments, and showed from it, that in the year 1843 there were issued
from the Civil Bill Courts 5,244 ejectments, comprising 14,816
defendants, and from the Superior Courts 1,784 ejectments, comprising
16,503 defendants, making a total of 7,028 ejectments, and 31,319
defendants; or within the period of five years--1839 to 1843--comprised
in the return, upwards of 150,000 persons had been subjected to
ejectment process in Ireland.
He complained of the administration of justice in that country. The
government had, he said, appointed partizan judges (he named several of
them) and partizan magistrates, in whom the people had no confidence,
whilst they took away the commission of the peace from seventy-four
gentlemen, simply because they advocated a repeal of the Legislative
Union.
He came to remedies. His opinion was that the great cause of the
existing state of Ireland was the land question. The fact is, he said,
the House has done too much for the landlord and too little for the
tenant. He enumerated the principal laws conferring power on the
landlords, adding that he did not believe there was a more fertile
source of murder and outrage than those powers. "_Thus_," said he, "_the
source of crime is directly traceable to the legislation of this
House_." The repeal of those Land Laws was one of the remedies which he
called for, but not the only one. He wanted the House to determine at
once to do justice to Ireland politically as well as in relation to the
law of landlord and tenant. In the first place, he said Ireland had not
an adequate number of members to represent her in the House, next she
wanted an extension of the franchise, thirdly, corporate reform, and,
lastly, a satisfactory arrangement of the temporalities of the church.
These four general remedies he demanded from the House, as a mode of
coercing the people of Ireland, by their affections and their interests,
into a desire to continue the Union with England. "I want," he said,
"the House to determine at once to do justice to Ireland politically as
well as in relation to the law of landlord and tenant."
He maintained that the Land Laws passed since the Union should be
repealed, and above all he called for full compensation for every
improvement made by the tenant. "Labour," he said, "is the property of
the tenant, and if the tenant by his labour and skill improved the land,
and made it more valuable, let him have the benefit of those
improvements, before the landlord turns him out of possession." In Lord
Devon's report he found the superior tranquillity of Ulster was traced
to the security given to the tenant by tenant right, in proof of which
he quoted the evidence of Mr. Handcock, Lord Lurgan's agent, and other
Northern witnesses who were examined before the Devon Commission. "This
then," he continued, "is the evidence of the North of Ireland as to the
value of tenant right. How often have I heard all the boast of the
superior tranquillity of the North? It was because they were better
treated by their landlords, and, generally speaking, there was a better
feeling there towards the landlords, and because the tenants were
allowed to sell their tenant right. In the County Tipperary there is an
agrarian law, which is the law of ejectment; in the province of Ulster
there is a general law giving the tenants valuable rights. He (Mr.
O'Connell) called upon the House to make their choice between the two.
Now was the time for the choice. The country had arrived at a state when
something must be done."
This is what Mr. D'Israeli calls "a panegyric of Ulster."
"Are you," he concluded, "desirous of putting an end to these murders?
Then it must be by removing the cause of the murder. You could not
destroy the effect without taking away the cause. I repeat, the
tranquillity of Ulster is owing to the enjoyment of tenant right; when
that right was taken away, the people were trodden under foot, and, in
the words of Lord Clare, 'ground to powder.'"
This is what Mr. D'Israeli calls "a patriotic quotation from Lord
Clare."
It would seem to me that any impartial reader of the Liberator's speech
on this occasion would regard it as an iteration of the whole policy of
his career, rather than an abnegation of it; but smooth and kind as Mr.
D'Israeli's words appear, it is manifest he did not forget their ancient
feud, and he therefore adroitly tries to give a parting stab, ungenerous
as it was false, to the expiring lion.
That portion of the Tory party which remained faithful to Protection,
being deserted by their leaders, rallied round Lord George Bentinck, and
in some sense forced him to become their champion against their late
chief, the Premier, and his policy. Thus was formed the Protectionist
party, strictly so called. This party being of opinion that there was
sufficient necessity for the Government Coercion Bill were in "great
difficulty to find a plausible pretext for opposing it." Lord George
himself hit upon one. The party held a meeting at the house of Mr.
Bankes, and after anxious discussion on the part of many members
present, Lord George at last spoke. He said "he was for giving the
Government a hearty support, provided they proved they were in earnest
in their determination to put down murder and outrage in Ireland, by
giving priority in the conduct of public business to the measure in
question,"--the Coercion Bill.[92] This was ingenious. The party
supported what was called public order in Ireland, but with a proviso
that might eventually defeat free trade by postponement. After some
finessing, the Government showed a determination to go on with both
bills. Lord John Russell and the Whigs saw their opportunity, and to the
dismay of the First Lord, he found the strange, incongruous,
unprecedented combination of Irish Repealers, Tory Protectionists,
Whigs, and Manchester League-men prepared to vote against him on his
Irish Coercion Act. The debate on it occupied six nights. It was closed
on the 25th of June by Mr. Cobden; the division was taken, and the
Government was left in a minority of SEVENTY THREE. It was a memorable
night in the life of Sir Robert Peel. Although a night of defeat, it was
also a night of triumph for him; for, two hours before the division, and
whilst the debate was going on, Commissioners from the House of Lords
announced to the Commons that their lordships had finally passed the
bill for the repeal of the Corn Laws. It was the law of the land!
Writing to Lord Harding, Governor-General of India, ten days afterwards,
Sir Robert says: "You will see that we are out--defeated by a
combination of Whigs and Protectionists. A much less emphatic hint would
have sufficed for me. I would not have held office by sufferance for a
week.... There are no secrets. We have fallen in the face of day, and
with our front to to our enemies. There is nothing I would not have done
to ensure the carrying of the measure I had proposed this session. I
pique myself on never having proposed anything which I have not carried.
But the moment their success was ensured, and I had the satisfaction of
seeing two drowsy Masters in Chancery mumble out, at the table of the
House of Commons that the Lords had passed the Corn and Customs Bills, I
was satisfied."[93] Sir Robert expresses himself satisfied, but the
coincidence which caused this satisfaction was not, in the slightest
degree influenced either by himself or any member of his Government.
Neither was it the result of chance or good fortune; it was solely
brought about by the nice calculation of the anti-Corn Law party, who
had resolved to prolong the debate on the Coercion Act until the Corn
Bill would be passed. And as soon as they heard the aforesaid drowsy
Masters in Chancery make the welcome announcement, _they_ were
satisfied, and the division took place.
During the session, the Peel Government proposed and carried several
measures for the employment of the people of Ireland, the principal of
which were:--1. An Act for the further amendment of the 1st Victoria,
cap. 21; 2. An Act empowering Grand Juries at the Assizes of 1846 to
appoint extraordinary presentment sessions for county works; 3. An Act
to consolidate the powers hitherto exercised by the Commissioners of
Public Works in Ireland; and, 4. An Act to facilitate the employment of
the labouring poor for a limited period in the distressed districts. Up
to the 15th of August, 1846, there was expended for the relief of Irish
distress the sum of £733,372; of which £368,000 was in loans, and
£365,372 in grants. The sum raised in voluntary subscriptions, through
the Relief Committees was £98,000. The largest number of persons
employed at any one time in this first season of relief was 97,000;
which was in August, 1846.[94]
There was very considerable delay in affording relief to the people
under the above acts. New Boards--new Commissioners--new Forms--new
everything had to be got up, and all were commenced too late; it was,
therefore, long, provokingly and unnecessarily long, before anything was
done. The Rev. Mr. Moore, Rector of Cong, in one of his letters,
complains that he was superciliously treated at the relief office in
Dublin Castle, and finally told relief was only to be had in the
workhouse. He then wrote to the Lord Lieutenant asking for a consignment
of meal to be sold in his neighbourhood, undertaking to be responsible
to the Government for the amount. A promise was given to him that this
would be done, but I cannot discover that it was ever fulfilled.
Great numbers were in a starving condition in the southern and western
counties, and in districts of Ulster also. A correspondent of the London
_Morning Chronicle_, writing from Limerick under date of the 16th of
April, says: "The whole of yesterday I spent in running from hut to hut
on the right bank of the Shannon. The peasantry there were in an awful
condition. In many cases they had not even a rotten potato left. They
have consumed even the seed potatoes, unable any longer to resist the
pangs of hunger." The Rev. Mr. Doyle, of Graig, in the county Kilkenny,
writing on the 13th of April, says, he had made a visitation of his
parish and found five hundred and eighty-three distressed families,
comprising two thousand seven hundred and thirty individuals; of this
number fifty-one had constant employment, two hundred and seventy none
at all; the rest got occasional work; three-fourths of the whole had not
three days' provisions. Sir Lucius O'Brien, (afterwards Lord Inchiquin),
as Chairman of the Ennis Board of Guardians, took occasion to remark,
"on the heartlessness of some of the Dublin papers, when speaking of the
famine." "Everyone acquainted with the country, knew," he said, "that at
this moment the people are in many places starving."[95]
The people assembled in considerable numbers in parts of the South
calling for food or employment. A man died of starvation on the public
works in Limerick. At a meeting in Newry for the purpose of taking
measures against the scarcity, and whilst some were denying its
existence in that locality, the Right Rev. Dr. Blake, the Catholic
bishop, said, that since he had entered the meeting, a letter had been
handed to him stating that a person had just died of starvation in High
Street. In April and May potatoes had risen to a famine price in the
provinces. They were quoted in Galway and Tuam at 6d. a stone, but in
reality, as the local journals remarked, the price was double that, as
not more than one-half of those bought could be used for food.
The humane and philanthropic, who went about endeavouring to save the
lives of the people, often asked, as they travelled through the country,
"Are the landlords making any efforts? "The common answer was, with very
rare exceptions, "None whatever." The correspondent of a Dublin
newspaper,[96] writing from Cashel, quotes a notice he had copied in
Cahir, which was posted all about the town.
It ran thus:--"The tenantry on the Earl of Glengall's estate, residing
in the manor of Cahir, are requested to pay into my office on the 12th
of May, all rent and arrears of rent due up to the 25th of March,
otherwise the most summary steps will be taken to recover same.
"JOHN CHAYTOR,
"1st April, 1846."
The same correspondent, in a letter from Templemore, informs his readers
that a certain noble proprietor was just after paying a visit to his
estate in that locality, and he had no sooner taken his departure, than
notices were served on his tenantry to pay the November rent. The
tenants asked time, saying they had only a few black potatoes left. The
bailiff's reply was characteristic, and no doubt truthful:--"What the
d---- do we care about you or your black potatoes?--it was not _us_ that
made them black--you will get two days to pay the rent, and if you don't
you know the consequence."[97]
When the relief depots, the local committees, and the public works got
into gear, much was done during the summer months to alleviate the
terrible distress; but as soon as the Government advances and
subscriptions to the committees began to be exhausted, the cry for food
was again heard from many parts of the country.[98]
At this time there were one hundred and twenty-three workhouses open,
and great as the people's aversion was to them the inmates went on
steadily increasing. In the month of December, 1845, the total number in
those workhouses was 41,118; in March, 1846, 50,717; and on the 13th of
June, the highest point attained during the year was arrived at, there
being, on that day, 51,302 persons receiving in-door relief. On the 29th
of August, owing, of course, to the harvest having come in, the number
had fallen to 43,655. In ordinary years, when there was neither blight,
nor fear of blight, it was deemed good husbandry to procure foreign seed
potatoes, and if this could not be done, farmers at least tried to
procure "strange" seed, grown at a distance from their own farms. A
larger and in every way a better crop was the usual result of this
practice. After the potato blight of 1845, the procuring of sound, and
if possible of foreign seed, for planting in Ireland was of the utmost
importance, and indeed Sir Robert Peel had included, in his new tariff,
the admission of foreign potatoes free, in the hope of securing good
seed for the planting of 1846; but as the Corn and Customs' Bill did not
become law until the end of June, this provision could be of no avail
for that year.
The Peel Government was defeated on the Irish Coercion Act on the 25th
of June, and the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel announced their
resignation on the 29th in the Upper and Lower Houses respectively. The
Duke contented himself with the simple announcement; but Sir Robert made
a speech, reviewing and defending his conduct whilst minister. Of
Ireland he said little, except that he had the full intention of serving
her in every way, by dealing with the land and other questions, telling
us patronizingly, that she was entitled to a "complete equality of
municipal and political rights." But this was only the old stereotyped
liberality of a beaten minister--beaten on an Irish Coercion
Act--speaking by anticipation from the Opposition benches, and
endeavouring to plant thorns in the path of his successful rival. The
sentiment, such as it was, was received with much cheers, and _some
murmurs_. Strange enough the _murmurs_ are not to be found in Hansard,
although reported in the newspapers of the day.
The Liberal party being for a long time the free trade party, and Sir
Robert Peel and his friends being only neophytes, he knew, even though
they did carry free trade, that they could not claim the merit of doing
so, only having taken it up, when it had attained such a position before
the country as to make it all but irresistible. Neither did he wish the
incoming Russell-Whig party to get credit for it; he therefore turned
aside, in a rather unusual manner, and gave the merit of it to Mr.
Cobden. "I said before, and I said truly," Sir Robert begins his eulogy
on that distinguished man, "that in proposing our measures of commercial
policy, I had no wish to rob others of the credit justly due to them. I
must say with reference to honorable gentlemen opposite, as I say with
reference to ourselves, that neither of us is the party which is justly
entitled to the credit of them. There has been a combination of parties
generally opposed to each other, and that combination and the influence
of Government, have led to their success. But the name which ought to be
associated with the success of those measures is not the name of the
noble lord, the organ of the party of which he is the leader, nor is it
mine. The name which ought to be, and will be associated with the
success of those measures, is the name of one who, acting, I believe,
from pure and disinterested motives, has with untiring energy, made
appeals to our reason, and has enforced those appeals with an eloquence
the more to be admired, because it was unaffected and unadorned: it is
the name of Richard Cobden." Sir Robert's peroration to this speech was
an elaborate one, and consisted in praises of himself. Here are his
closing words: "I shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist, who
from less honorable motives clamours for protection, because it conduces
to his own individual benefit; but it may be, that I shall leave a name
sometimes remembered with expressions of good will, in the abodes of
those whose lot is to labour, and to earn their daily bread by the sweat
of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with
abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened
with a sense of injustice."[99]
Although Sir Robert Peel lived four years after this defeat, he never
returned to the treasury benches. In opposition, however, he was almost
as powerful as when minister; giving to Lord John Russell's Government
an independent and most valuable support, without which it could not
have continued to exist. On the 28th of June, 1850, he spoke in the
House on the celebrated Don Pacifico's claims against the Greek
Government, and refused his support to Mr. Roebuck's motion approving of
Lord Palmerston's foreign policy. He rode out next day--SS. Peter and
Paul's day--his horse shied and became restive, whilst he was saluting a
lady on Constitution Hill; he was thrown heavily; on being taken up,
partly insensible, he was conveyed to his house, where, having suffered
much pain, he died three days afterwards.
Sir Robert Peel's father, a very wealthy cotton spinner, and also a
Member of Parliament, had early made up his mind that his son should
become a public man. As soon as he was of age he was returned by the
borough of Cashel to the House of Commons, where he soon began to
display those qualities for which his family was
distinguished--prudence, industry, discreet reserve, with a remarkable
ability for utilizing the brains of others. His father, who was made a
baronet by Mr. Perceval, became a millionaire by cotton spinning, yet in
a generation remarkable for invention, neither he nor one belonging to
him originated any of the improvements for preparing or spinning cotton;
when one was made, however, its utility soon became apparent to the
practical good sense of the Peels; they secured it, and thus founded a
house and built up a princely fortune to sustain it; while, too often,
the man whose original genius discovered the improvement, lived and died
in comparative poverty.[100] Sir Robert Peel carried this second-rate,
but most valuable quality, into statesmanship. He was not the originator
of any great political amelioration; he was invariably found, at first,
in opposition to every measure of the kind; but he did not refuse to
examine it; on the contrary, he studied it carefully, weighed the
reasons put forward in support of it, watched with nervous anxiety the
tide of public opinion, and when that could no longer be resisted with
safety, he took the question up and sustained it by the arguments he had
been combating before--remodelled, to be sure, occasionally, but still
the same; threw the weight of his high character into the scale, and
thus not only contributed to its success, but secured it. Such is the
history of Catholic Emancipation and the repeal of the Corn Laws. Hence
a bitter political adversary of his, who has drawn his public character
with much candour and ability, and not in an ungenerous spirit either,
says of him, that "his life was one of perpetual education." Elsewhere
he puts pretty much the same idea in a severer and more sarcastic form,
when he asserts that Sir Robert Peel's mind "was one vast appropriating
clause."[101]
Some of his eulogists assert that he had made up his mind on the great
measures he carried through Parliament long before he had given them his
support, but that he was awaiting a favourable opportunity to declare
his views, whilst he was in the meantime educating his party. If this be
intended as a compliment, as it seems to be, it is a very doubtful one.
Assuming it to be true, he must for many years of his life have been a
mere hypocrite. The opinion that he himself was gradually educated into
these views would seem to be the truer as it is also the kinder one;
besides his own declarations coincide with it. There was what is called
a Bullion Committee in 1811, and another in 1819, Sir Robert (then Mr.)
Peel being chairman of the latter. The former was called Mr. Hooner's
Committee. In 1819, speaking of the inconvertible paper money, he
recanted his views of 1811, as his opinions with regard to the question
had undergone "a material change." "He had," he said, "voted against Mr.
Hooner's resolutions in 1811, he would now vote for them if they were
brought forward." In his Memoirs, speaking of the Corn Laws, "he had,"
he says, "adopted at an early period of his public life, without, he
fears, much serious reflection, the opinions generally prevalent of the
justice and necessity of protection to domestic agriculture, but _the
progress of discussion_ had made a material change in the opinions of
many persons" [himself of course amongst the number] "with regard to the
policy of protection to domestic agriculture." It is true, then, that
this eminent statesman was at school all his life, a diligent student,
willing and anxious to learn, but always conducting his studies from a
Conservative standpoint. It is no discredit to him--far from it. And
although the tide of progress carried him to the extent of breaking up
his own party, in doing so he was acting, he considered, for the
interests of England. Nothing can be more absurd and wicked in a
statesman than to allow himself to be impounded within the narrow
iron-bound circle of party, and to persevere in sustaining the views and
principles of that party against justice, conscience and fact.
Great and varied as were the powers of Sir Robert Peel as a public
speaker, he was not an orator in the strictest and highest sense of that
word. True oratory is the offspring of genius, and he, gifted though he
was, had not the sacred fire of genius in his soul. In the style which
he adopted, and which was probably the best suited to his natural
powers, he was all but perfect: lucid, argumentation, frank, at least in
seeming, bland, persuasive; always singularly respectful not only to the
House, but to the humblest member of it; his speeches partook more of
the lecture and less of oratorical display than those of most other
public men with anything like his reputation; but they were admirably
suited to an educated and deliberative assembly like the House of
Commons--and hence he influenced--almost ruled it, as no other man did
before or since. Knowing this, he never felt so happy or so much at home
as in that scene of his labours and his triumphs. His gesture was
inferior: he used it but seldom, and when he did it added neither to the
grace nor effectiveness of his delivery. He sometimes appeared to be at
a loss to know what to do with his arms: at one time he would thrust his
thumbs into the armholes of his vest; at another he would let his arms
fall into a sort of swinging motion at his sides, where he allowed,
rather than used them, to toss back his coatskirts in a confused,
undignified manner.
He never spoke on important questions without careful preparation, as
was always evident from the facts and arguments of which his speeches
chiefly consisted, as well as from their careful arrangement. His voice
was fine, and he had the skill, rare enough in public speakers, of
modulating it with excellent effect.
The happiest portions of his speeches were those in which he
endeavoured, by artful appeals to the good sense and patriotism of his
hearers, to win them over to his views; and the frequent success that
attended such efforts is their highest praise. He seldom attempted an
ambitious flight, and when he did his best friends felt it was not his
true line. He dealt but little in figurative language, except when
argument failed him; still he has left some specimens of much beauty in
this style. In his great speech introducing Catholic Emancipation in
1829, he told Parliament it had but two courses to follow--to advance or
to recede; to advance by conceding the Catholic claims, or to recede by
reimposing those portions of the penal laws already repealed. Dwelling
on the impossibility and insanity of the latter course, he said: "We
cannot replace the Roman Catholics in the position in which we found
them, when the system of relaxation and indulgence began. We have given
them the opportunity of acquiring education, wealth, and power. We have
removed with our own hands the seal from the vessel in which a mighty
spirit was enclosed; but it will not, like the genius in the fable,
return within its narrow confines to gratify our curiosity, and to
enable us to cast it back into the obscurity from which we evoked it."
Here is another specimen from his speech on the Reform Bill of 1832. He
opposed that Bill with all his energy, as is well known. Lord Durham, a
very advanced reformer for his time, and son-in-law to Earl Grey, the
Prime Minister, was known to have influenced that nobleman in retaining
the most liberal clauses of the bill. For his years he was a very
juvenile looking man, which gave point to Sir Robert Peel's words when
he said so happily: "It would appear as if the reins of the State had
been confided to some youthful and inexperienced hands; and who, left
without any guiding principle, or any controlling sense of duty, were
rushing on with headlong violence which wiser men could neither moderate
nor restrain.... They should have said to any one of these persons,
whose ambition made him press for an employment so fraught with danger
to himself and injury to others,
' ---- non est tua tuta voluntas.
Magna petis, Phaëton, et quæ nec viribus istis
Munera conveniant, nec tam puerilibus annis!'
They should have given him the salutary caution that the fiery steeds
which he aspired to guide required the hand of restraint and not the
voice of incitement--
'Sponte suâ properant; labor est inhibere voluntas;
Parce, puer, stimulis, ac fortius uteri loris.'
If the caution had not been given, or if it had been disregarded, let
them hope, at least, that the example of their suffering might be a
warning to others, and that another lesson to the folly and rashness of
mankind might be read by the light of their conflagration."
The manner in which he dealt with the potato blight, and consequent
Irish Famine, is indefensible. His policy from first to last was a
policy of delay--delay in a case in which delay was ruin. He went on by
slow and almost imperceptible degrees preparing his colleagues for his
altered views on the Corn duties; talking and writing all the time
pathetically, about the deep apprehensions he entertained of an
impending famine in Ireland, while his whole heart was set on quite
another object. To aid this masked policy of his, there was Commission
after Commission--the Scientific Commission, the Castle Commission, the
Police inquiry; and these went on analyzing, printing, and distributing
hundreds weight of query sheets, and making reports, long after it was
proved, beyond all doubt, that half the food of the Irish people had
been irretrievably lost, the money value of which was estimated at from
eight to ten millions of pounds sterling. So early as the end of
October, 1845, Dr. Playfair, his own scientific investigator, expressed
to him his opinion that fully one half of the potatoes in Ireland were
perfectly unfit for human food; he said he had made a careful tour of
the potato shops of Dublin, and had found that those potatoes picked as
sound had nineteen bad for fourteen good! Sir Robert Peel knew this in
October, 1845; admitted its truth more than once during the session of
Parliament that followed, and yet the bill which he persisted in
regarding as the only panacea for such a national calamity, did not
become law until the 25th of June, 1846, eight months afterwards; but of
course four millions of foodless Irish must battle with starvation until
the Premier had matured and carried his measure for securing cheap bread
for the artizans of England; and further, those same famishing millions
had, day after day, to submit to be insulted by his false and hollow
assertion, that all this was done for them. Nor can it be urged in his
favour, that the delay in repealing the Corn Laws was the fault of his
opponents, not his own; for no one knew better than he, a shrewd
experienced party leader, that every available weapon of Parliamentary
warfare would be used, as they were used, against his bill for the
repeal of the Corn Laws, in order to strike it down by sheer defeat if
possible, but if not, at least to maim and lop it of its best
provisions.
FOOTNOTES:
[88] Mr. Culhoun.
[89] During the debate in the House of Lords on the Address, in January,
1846, Lord Brougham stated his views about the repeal of the Corn Laws;
the reasons why they should be repealed, and the effects of that repeal.
These views must have seemed to many at the time strange enough, if not
eccentric, but they have turned out to be singularly correct. He
said:--"It was my opinion that an alteration in the commercial policy of
this country with respect to corn, as well as to other commodities, was
highly expedient; I will not say solely, but principally, and beyond all
comparison most chiefly wanted, not for the purpose of lowering the
price of corn and food (which I never expected it could do, which I
urged it could not do, which I endeavoured to show it had no tendency to
do, any more than the Corn Laws had a tendency to keep up the prices of
food); but because I thought it would tend to remodel the whole of our
commercial system, and cause it to assume such a shape and position with
respect to Foreign Powers, as to prevent them from excluding our
manufactures, by opening our ports to their corn, and such as would give
us a reasonable prospect that their restrictions would be removed, and
our manufactures allowed to penetrate into these foreign markets." And
further on in the same speech, "I shortly restate," he said, "the ground
on which I rested for the repeal or the modification of the Corn Law
system. I did not, because I could not, hold to the people of this
country--I could not honestly hold out to them, that it would make bread
cheap.... I did not argue that the Corn Law was the cause of famine,
that it was the cause of disease, that it was the cause of crime, that
it was the cause of mortality, in this country."--_(Hansard)_.
[90] Smith O'Brien occupied far more of the time and attention of the
House of Commons, during the Session, by his refusal to serve on a
railway Committee than by his speeches. This refusal gave rise to some
delicate questions of constitutional law, and consigned the hon.
gentleman to prison for twenty-five days. _See note_ B, APPENDIX.
[91] Lord George Bentinck: a political biography, 5th edition, revised,
p. 158.
[92] Lord George Bentinck, a Political Biography, by Benjamin D'Israeli.
[93] Sir Robert Peel's Memoirs, part 3, page 310. Any one can see how
little poor famine-stricken Ireland was before Sir Robert's mind, when
he penned the above lines.
[94] The Irish Crisis, by Sir Charles E. Trevelyan.
[95] This observation was, in all probability, levelled at the _Dublin
Evening Mail_; a newspaper which Sir Lucius would be sure to read, being
one of the organs of his party, and which had, sometime before, with a
heartless attempt at humour, called the blight "the potato mirage."
[96] The _Freeman's Journal_.
[97] _Ibid._ This correspondent tells an anecdote of a peasant whose
heroic generosity contrasts strongly with the conduct of the above noble
proprietors. He (the correspondent) stood by a pit of potatoes whilst
the owner, a small farmer, was turning them for the purpose of picking
out and rejecting the bad ones. The man informed him it was the _fourth
picking_ within a fortnight. At the first picking, he said the pit
contained about sixty barrels, but they were now reduced to about _ten_.
Whilst this conversation was going on, a beggar came up and asked an
alms for God's sake. The farmer told his wife to give the poor woman
some of the potatoes, adding--"Mary, give her no bad ones, God is good,
and I may get work to support us."
"I am warranted in saying," he concludes, "that by the 10th of May there
will not be a single potato for twenty miles around Clonmel."
[98] There were twenty principal Government Food Depots established in
various parts of Ireland in 1846, at which the following quantities were
issued:--
Tons. cwts. qrs. lbs.
Indian Corn 30 00 00 00
Indian Corn Meal 11,593 11 00 19
Oat Meal 528 00 3 24
Biscuit 6 3 00 7
------ -- -- --
Total 12,157 15 0 22
R.J. ROUTH, Commissary General.
--_Famine Reports. Commissariat Series. Vol. 1, p. 2._
The number of Relief Committees in this, the first year of famine, was
600. In 1847, they numbered nearly 2,000.
[99] "On Monday at five o'clock, the public notification of the
resignation of the Ministry was made by Sir Robert Peel to a crowded
house, and in a remarkable speech.... It included an unparliamentary
eulogium on Mr. Cobden, whom it mentioned, to the surprise of the House,
by name, and it terminated with a panegyric of himself, elaborate, but
rather clumsily expressed."--_Lord George Bentinck, a Political
Biography, by Benjamin D'Israeli._
"On the conclusion of this speech cheers burst forth on all sides ...
The House adjourned to the 3rd of July. Sir Robert Peel went out resting
on the arm of his friend, Sir George Clerk, the member for Stamford. A
great crowd thronged the approaches, on seeing him all took off their
hats, opened their ranks to let him pass, and accompanied him in silence
to the door of his house."--_Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel, by M. Guizot_
[100] See Baines' History of the Cotton Manufacture.
[101] Benjamin D'Israeli.